Cisco to Add 1,700 Jobs in Ontario Amid Manufacturing Drop

Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Cisco Systems Inc., the biggest
maker of computer-networking equipment, will hire 1,700
employees in Ontario over the next six years, bolstering the
Canadian province’s technology sector as traditional
manufacturers close plants and fire workers.

The jobs are part of a 10-year pact with Ontario to invest
$4 billion in the province, including $2.2 billion in salaries,
the San Jose, California-based company said in a statement.
Cisco already has 1,300 employees in Ontario and may increase
that to 5,000 by 2024, Karin Scott, a spokeswoman for Cisco,
said in an e-mail.

“We’re sending a message to the world that Ontario is the
best place anywhere for business to innovate,” Eric Hoskins,
Ontario’s minister for economic development, trade and
employment, said in the statement. Ontario will pay as much as
$220 million for the initiative.

Once a dominant economic force in the country, Ontario’s
manufacturing sector has contracted 30 percent in the last 10
years from 1.1 million jobs in November 2003 to 771,300 last
month, according to Statistics Canada. Kellogg Co. and HJ Heinz
Co. have said they will close Ontario plants in the last two
months.

BlackBerry Ltd., which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, said
in September it would cut a third of its workforce after
reporting a 40 percent plunge in sales.

Cisco’s Forecast

Cisco yesterday reduced its revenue forecast for the next
three to five years amid weaker demand from emerging markets and
telecommunications-service providers. The company has eliminated
12,300 positions in about the past two years, including 4,000
jobs, or 5 percent of the workforce, announced in August.

The new Cisco jobs will focus on research and development,
and the company will build a new Toronto headquarters, according
to the statement.

“This initiative will also ensure that Ontario continues
to be a leader in the information and communications technology
industry, with a vast talent pool representing the country’s
next generation of innovation,” Nitin Kawale, president of
Cisco Canada, said in the statement.